Billfolds used to carry paper currency, credit cards, pieces of identification and other rectangularly shaped items have been in existence for many years. Such billfolds are typically manufactured from leather or leather-like materials and are stitched at appropriate locations to provide one or more pockets into which the foregoing rectangular items to be carried may be inserted. In the most usual configuration, the billfold is designed to be folded one or more times onto itself for compactness of size and for insertion into a clothing pocket or pocketbook.
However, currency also takes the form of coin pieces, or thin circularly shaped cylindrical metal pieces assigned a particular denomination or monetary value. In the United States, such coins includes pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars and silver dollars, although the latter two coin pieces are rarely used in common circulation.
The use of coin pieces in today's society is widespread and includes a number of important application to which the present invention may be beneficially directed. These applications include parking meters, toll booths, coin operated vending machines and such other applications where the use of paper currency is often inconvenient or impossible. In such situations, it is often advantageous to maintain a supply of coin pieces on one's person so that the desired or necessary coin pieces may be conveniently accessed.
Billfolds have been designed which, in addition to accepting paper currency for storage and subsequent folding, accept into a "change purse" various coin pieces for later retrieval. Such "change purses" incorporated into billfolds heretofore have taken the form of a common pouch into which all denominations of coin pieces may be placed, the pouch being subsequently zippered or snapped closed to restrain the coin pieces therein. However, a significant drawback to such common pouches is that they typically result in a thickness which is much thicker than the thickness of the folded billfold itself. Thus, the convenience of placing a folded billfold into a clothing pocket can be compromised. Moreover, by placing the coin pieces into a common pouch, the ability to quickly and conveniently retrieve a coin piece of a particular denomination is often made difficult and time consuming. Also, in the case of snap closed pouches, separation of the snap from the cover caused by repeated use over time and the loss of the ability to restrain the coins within the pouch often occurs, with deleterious consequences.